Alex Morgan has explained her tea-sipping goal celebration which provoked controversy during the USA’s World Cup semi-final victory over England.

The US forward raised her fingers to her lips, miming a sip of tea, after scoring the decisive goal in her team’s 2-1 win.

Immediately after the game she would not give specifics on what was behind it but later she said: “I feel like we didn’t take an easy route through this tournament and ‘that’s the tea’.”

The term ‘tea’ is often used to refer to gossip, with ‘sipping tea’ meaning learning about gossip – as in sipping or drinking in the information. Influencers and show hosts such as RuPaul use this understanding of tea to discuss celebrity scandals, saying “here’s the tea” to mean “here’s the gossip”.

Morgan also said: “I know Megan Rapinoe has the best celebration. I had to try and step up this game.” Rapinoe celebrated her goals against France by standing with arms outstretched.

Morgan’s pose prompted a variety of suggestions regarding its meaning. Public opinion seemed to be balanced between the motion being a shot at England’s fondness for tea; a reference to the ease with which Morgan scored; a tribute to the Boston Tea Party; or the fact that Morgan’s goal came on her 30th birthday. Piers Morgan called it “a declaration of war”, while Hillary Clinton said “congrats to the USWNT for earning that tea”.

The US had already attracted criticism for what some perceived as overcelebration when they beat Thailand 13-0. In that game, the US were still furiously celebrating long after the game had been sealed. In their following game, Carli Lloyd celebrated one of her goals with a polite “golf clap”.